The PLA Blog » technical services http://plablog.org Official Blog of the Public Library Association Tue, 22 May 2012 20:27:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 2006-2008 contact@plablog.org (Public Library Association) contact@plablog.org (Public Library Association) 1440 http://plablog.org/wp-content/themes/default/images/PLABlog_144.png The PLA Blog » technical services http://plablog.org 144 144 The official blog of the Public Library Association Public Library Association Public Library Association contact@plablog.org no no Technical Services: Engine of the library http://plablog.org/2010/03/technical-services-engine-of-the-library.html http://plablog.org/2010/03/technical-services-engine-of-the-library.html#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:05:58 +0000 lynne http://plablog.org/?p=2336 Despite a late-in-the-day time slot, Cindy Orr, Library Consultant at Cynthia Orr Consulting and Deborah Ensor, Director of Technical Services at Cuyahoga County Public Library spoke to a full house about returning the Technical Services department to its role as the “central engine of the library.”   They spoke from their experience revamping the technical services work flow at the Cuyahoga County Public Library.  Cuyahoga, which encompasses the cities and towns surrounding Cleveland, Ohio, added 767,000 items to the collection last year, circulated 19 million items and processes 20,000 items a week.  Before a work flow make-over, the technical services staff had a backlog of over 2000 boxes of unprocessed acquisitions.  Using a methodology that engaged managers and staff alike (and some overtime!) they were able to alter the work flow and eliminate the backlog in three months.  They now enjoy a three day turnaround for new receipts, delivering items received early in the week before the week is out.

Said Orr, “the world doesn’t care about our excuses.  If you can work through your procedures and get your turnaround time down, you can work just-in-time instead of just-in-case.”  She encouraged technical service managers and staff alike to be proactive about acquisitions – to know what is going to be popular BEFORE it is published, get records for titles into the catalog in advance of publication so patrons can place holds on it, ordering sufficient copies to meet anticipated demand, and get new titles on the shelves on the ‘street date’, when it is first available in bookstores and Amazon.    This approach, she says, ‘makes public services staff look like geniuses.  When a patron asks about a soon to be published title, even if the reference staff has never heard of it, it comes up in the catalog and delights the patron.

Other tips from Orr and Ensor:

- have your vendor deliver records for titles you’ve ordered with street dates in them, rather than simply the year of publication (patrons will know when to expect it to be available)

-have the records in the catalog pre-publication

- have policies that maintain holds as long as necessary  (do your holds policies support holds placed today for a title with a street date of November, 2010?)

- think through the whole process, not just your part of it (Tech Services needs to be creative and  involved in marketing and display of new titles)

- have good selectors that will identify what will be hot and get it ordered

According to Orr and Ensor, assuring new titles are on the shelf when patrons are looking for them will put Tech Services back in a key, central position in the library.  Session handouts include a great checklist of questions to ask as you evaluate your technical services work flows.

]]> http://plablog.org/2010/03/technical-services-engine-of-the-library.html/feed 6 Internet Librarian 2009 – Meredith Hammons http://plablog.org/2009/10/internet-librarian-2009-meredith-hammons-11.html http://plablog.org/2009/10/internet-librarian-2009-meredith-hammons-11.html#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:46:05 +0000 m.hammons http://plablog.org/2009/10/internet-librarian-2009-meredith-hammons-11.html The last section I attended was on adapting technical services for the digital age. The presenters were all from academic libraries, but I thought there would be many things that would translate to public libraries.
The first presenter spent a lot of time discussing what had been the catalysts for change. The most important things I gleaned from this presentation were that the skill sets needed for quality technical services do not change, even as the medium changes. The presenter also mentioned that technical service employees need to be positive and open to change to cope with all of the transition. One specific issue he highlighted is the need to adapt to non-MARC metadata. He did not mention RDA, but clearly the current discussions about that system, factor into the need for non-MARC metadata.
The second group of presenters discussed the ways that they had changed technical services at Cal State-Northridge. They discussed the need for a workflow analysis among the tech services staff. The results of this were eliminating duplicate tasks, eliminating unnecessary tasks, leveraging technology, maximizing staff expertise, providing cross-training, and aiming for “one touch” handling. The speakers really emphasized staff buy-in. I was able to take a great deal from this section of the presentation. It gave me some ideas on how to hold a workflow analysis for my own department and ways to get workflow analysis from the branches, as well as from my centralized staff. I would have liked more practical information, but I did find value in points about gaining staff buy-in and the necessary positive attitude for staff, as well as the ways that I, as a supervisor, can cultivate that attitude.

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